U.S. News: UCCS a best in the West

The University of Colorado Colorado Springs is a top 10 Western regional public university and its College of Engineering and Applied Science is a national leader, according to the editors of U.S. News and World Report.

In the 2014 college rankings edition, “America’s Best Colleges,” released today, Sept. 10, the magazine’s editors ranked the overall quality of UCCS tenth in a three-way tie among public Western regional universities. Among all public and private Western regional universities, UCCS was ranked in the first tier and 42 overall.

“As UCCS prepares to mark 50 years in the Pikes Peak region, we celebrate this recognition by a national publication respected for its commitment to accurate data collection.” Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak said. “U.S. News provides parents and students a set of statistics upon which they can make informed decisions about a university that is the best fit for them.”

Advance copies of the rankings were made available to universities with the stipulation that they not be released until Sept. 10. Full, detailed rankings were also made available Sept. 10 for an additional fee through the U.S. News website.

Regional universities provide a full range of undergraduate majors and master’s degree programs, and few, if any, doctoral programs. U.S. News includes 621 universities in this category in one of four geographic regions—North, South, Midwest, and West.

The magazine’s editors also lauded the UCCS undergraduate engineering program, ranking it tied for fifth in the nation among public engineering schools whose highest degree is a bachelor’s or master’s, including military service academies. The overall national ranking for UCCS undergraduate engineering program, including public and private universities, was 22.

In the more detailed rankings available at extra-cost, U.S. News ranked the undergraduate program in the UCCS College of Business 119 among public and private universities in the nation. There were 22 schools tied for the ranking including the California Polytechnic University-San Luis Obispo, Creighton University, Ohio University, Rutgers University, Newark, Seattle University, University of Memphis, and the University of Texas, Arlington.

The top public Western regional universities were California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, Western Washington University, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Evergreen State College, California State University-Long Beach, California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, California State University-Fullerton, California State University-Fresno, San Jose State University, California State University-Chico, Sonoma State University and UCCS.

The top public undergraduate engineering programs at schools whose highest degree is bachelor’s or master’s were U. S. Military Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Naval Academy, California Polytechnic-San Luis Obispo, San Jose State University, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, California Polytechnic-Pomona, Citadel, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and UCCS.

In ranking more than 1,400 colleges and universities, U.S. News relies on quantitative measures that education experts have proposed as reliable indicators of academic quality. Among the measures are student retention rates, graduation rates, and class sizes.